Things My Brother Taught Me
by estelwillow
Summary: Kyle reminisces on what Derek taught him before he goes off on his fatal mission written from the prompt 'Reflections'


Kyle had been eight when the war had started. Judgement Day. He'd been throwing a ball with his brother in the front yard when the missiles were launched. He remembered thinking that they were fireworks, that someone had forgotten that it wasn't the fourth of July. But then Derek was grabbing him and yanking open a manhole cover, all but throwing Kyle down the shaft and sealing them in.

Less than an hour later, the whole world was on fire. Kyle remembered crying, he remembered curling up in a ball and sobbing, wanting to go back and find mom and dad, wanting to go and find someone else that they knew, what about grandma and grandpa? Or Uncle Jerry? Why couldn't they go there? He didn't understand and Derek just kept pulling him along.

It wasn't often that Kyle had a chance to think about Derek, but he did it a lot when he was in the work camp. Thirteen and he was plucked out of his brother's metaphorical arms by the machines, thrust into the work camp and branded for life. A barcode on his forearm. Everything that Derek had tried to shield him from, all the horrors hit him at once. Kyle never realised how bad things were because Derek had protected him, Derek had taken the brunt of it so that Kyle might be alright. It was the thoughts of Derek that kept him going, the whispers of John Connor. Derek would come for him, he kept telling people that. Derek would come and save him because his big brother Derek was a superhero. Kyle had seen him kill one of the rubber-skinned infiltrators, watched him shoot it and then beat it until its parts weren't whirring anymore. Until the light in its eyes went out. Kyle had seen Derek knock a man twice his size out because the guy was trying to take their food. Take their blankets, the ones that Kyle had had to sneak above ground to steal; the entrance to the collapsed mall had been too small for Derek, but Kyle knew if he needed him, Derek would have broken down the damn wall to get him.

He chanted it to himself when he was moving bodies. _Derek'll come for me, Derek'll come for me_. Of course, as the years passed and there was no Derek, Kyle's only reasoning for it was that Derek had been killed. That Derek was dead and he turned to John Connor, who took him under his wing and cared for him, promised to save him and gave him a good luck charm. A picture of a beautiful woman called Sarah. Sarah Connor. John's mother. John told him stories about Sarah, how she'd raised him to do this since he was a kid. In return, Kyle told John stories about Derek, but that he was pretty sure his brother was dead because he'd been in the camp for five years and he still hadn't been rescued.

But Derek wasn't dead. Far from it. And when Kyle found Derek again only to be met with a machine gun pointed at his face, he stared unflinchingly into his brother's eyes and then launched himself at him. As unseemly as it was for a twenty year old to cry, he hid his face in his brother's neck and clung to him like there was no tomorrow. There might not have been for them. Derek didn't want to let Kyle out of his sight. Kyle didn't want to be anywhere without Derek. It was a mutually beneficial relationship for a while, until they both got transferred. Signing up to the same unit, separated by Connor and bound to their orders by duty.

It took a lot of convincing for Derek to go. Kyle spent hours regaling stories of how John helped him, how John saved him from Century, watching the tick of Derek's tensing jaw, knowing that his brother felt like had failed. Kyle rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, showing the tattooed barcode and running his fingers along it. He told Derek it was okay, because they were together again now. That John wouldn't let anything happen to him.

To anyone that would listen, Kyle told stories of Derek, ate up the tales that others had to tell about him too, the six years he had missed in which Derek killed metal and destroyed HKs, how Derek had become something of a living legend, like Connor but not, how if someone needed something doing, Derek was the one that would get it done. Derek couldn't be killed. Someone - older than anyone else Kyle had ever seen, same age as Connor, maybe - likened Derek to Batman, or Superman.

"My brother's Superman." It became Kyle's favourite phrase, even if Derek did clip him upside the head every time he said it. But Kyle saw the secret smile, the glimmer of pride in his brother's eye every time he came back from a mission alive, and the overwhelming relief that slid across his features in that first instant they saw each other.

There weren't words between them. Kyle said a lot. He said _I love you_, and _be safe_, and _don't do anything stupid_. Derek said_ your guts are metal, like your head_, and _you're an idiot_, and _you're a shitty liar, go see a doctor_ and _I can't believe Connor gave you a photo of his mom, it's creepy, you know I hate that thing_, but Kyle still knew he cared. It was in the nudging of his shoulder, the small smile that Derek only ever gave to him. It was all in the teasing. It was in the way that he looked concerned whenever Kyle was called to see John. It was in the anger that flooded through Derek's veins when Connor sent Kyle off on another mission alone.

It was in the way that he knew something was wrong when Kyle came back after meeting with Connor that last time and gave him the picture. Asked him to put it in his locker. It was in the way that Derek pulled him into a hug and said _be safe, little brother_ and his fingers twisted in the fabric of Kyle's flak jacket. It was in the way that Kyle clung to Derek and said that he'd see him in a couple of days.

It was in the way that Kyle turned to Connor and asked; _look after him, okay?_ and _promise me you'll keep him alive_. Connor nodded his head and hugged Kyle before putting him in the time displacement field.

It was how Kyle lay in the alley, steaming and burning, feeling fourteen all over again in a strange place and wishing he had his brother there to talk him through it. But he knew Derek was doing what he needed to, in the future. That Derek was alive and would keep on living.

And, if Kyle did this right, maybe Derek wouldn't ever have to be a solider. He needed to save Sarah Connor. Because he needed to save Derek.


End file.
